The mid-1970s to mid-1980s were an exciting and generative time both at Clark University and in the field of rhetoric and composition. As this academic field started to coalesce around a more egalitarian, democratic, and social approach to the teaching of writing, there was also profound support for writing across the disciplines in higher education. Clark was one of many universities that received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities to develop innovative, co-taught, and interdisciplinary writing courses. And with that funding, a new kind of position came about: a writing center director who would oversee writing across the curriculum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I will begin by noting that I am biased. As a graduate of Clark University (double major in English and psychology), I knew the school was a special place. During my time at Clark, I engaged in writing in every discipline I studied \u2014 from film studies and geography to psychology, history, and philosophy. Writing was a mainstay of my education, and I was taught by compassionate and adept professors who cared about the craft and content of writing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I was, however, not given clear guidance on developing my own writing process. As a professor of writing and rhetoric at Hofstra University, I direct a writing center where countless undergraduate and graduate students come through our doors trying to figure out their own writing processes, their own craft. I have worked with thousands of writers, from those beginning their college journeys to those who are at the height of their careers as tenured professors. All shared a desire for self-improvement and the more communal aspects of writing that writing centers facilitate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A year ago, a colleague of mine at Salem State University shared a chapter in a long-forgotten book on innovative writing pedagogy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDid you know Clark was at the forefront of the writing-across-the-curriculum movement?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I did not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1975, Clark was granted hundreds of thousands of dollars to create innovative and writing-focused curricula that included preparing faculty across the disciplines to teach writing. To do this work, the grant\u2019s principal investigators hired Leone Scanlon, who would go on to manage the writing infrastructure of Clark University for over 20 years. Leone had retired by the time I arrived at Clark, and the writing center she founded became a smaller operation, located in the Corner House on Woodland Street. It was open a few hours a day and was primarily marketed toward students with learning accommodations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n During her time working at Clark, Leone ran the expository writing program that many Clarkies might remember from their first-year composition requirements. The DNA of her ideas was everywhere within these early writing initiatives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Writing and rhetoric folks like history. We write about the histories of the programs we inherit, the people who mentored us, or the founders of our discipline. We return to the archives and conduct interviews to better understand the foundational elements of the writing programs we are tasked with running. While I am an alum of Clark, I also felt like the infusion of writing work was critical to my own professional and academic development. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is a secret history that very few people have a mild recollection of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here, I share a story that is one part historical, one part celebratory, and one part mystery. How does the innovative work performed by a university\u2019s faculty get lost to time? Why write in the modern world, when generative AI can do it for you? How do we ethically capture and honor the work of our colleagues and professors, even decades on from their work? In this story, I hope to find out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Professor Marvin D\u2019Lugo, professor emeritus of Spanish, joins on a Zoom call from Spain. D\u2019Lugo came to Clark in 1972 and retired in 2013, but in retirement he remains very active. A manuscript awaiting his review lies on the table next to him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is no institutional history of Leone,\u201d D\u2019Lugo says. This is a \u201csecret history that very few people have a mild recollection of, and it goes back to 1974 or 1975, when Al Anderson was encouraged by administration to go after funds at the NEH.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Anderson, professor of philosophy, and D\u2019Lugo embodied the interdisciplinary spirit of the programs they administered. Starting as a professor of Spanish, D\u2019Lugo became one of the first jointly appointed faculty in Film Studies, long before this was common in academia. Anderson studied journalism at Syracuse and worked as a radio announcer for four years at KSCJ 1360 before studying philosophy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Anderson, who came to Clark in 1973, wrote a pilot program called Concepts of Space in which cross-disciplinary teams of instructors co-taught classes with common themes, and shared activities and goals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the program struggling to find its footing early on, the NEH encouraged Clark to apply for a bigger grant centered on a new form of interdisciplinary writing education called \u201cwriting across the curriculum.\u201d Clark eventually earned a $350,000 grant over a three-year period. \u201cThere was something in the air at Clark,\u201d D\u2019Lugo says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And so, the Program in Humanistic Studies was born. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The program\u2019s focus was to explore disciplinary connections through the shared pursuit of writing. \u201cI was trying to contribute to the process of making the interdisciplinary a little more available,\u201d Anderson says. \u201cPeople were beginning to realize that, especially in the contemporary world, you just can\u2019t separate one discipline from another.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The mid-1970s marked a period when universities became interested in writing and teaching across disciplines, and Clark University was a leader. For a time, D\u2019Lugo \u2014 like Anderson before him \u2014 traveled to institutions throughout the country to share the Clark model. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe NEH evaluator came and said it was one of the best programs in the country,\u201d D\u2019Lugo recalls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n D\u2019Lugo hired Leone Scanlon in 1977 to administer the writing-related parts of the grant. Scanlon had attended graduate school with the famed writing studies scholar Peter Elbow and later got to know him through his scholarship and conferences at Clark that she ran. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The program ultimately shifted its focus from faculty to students. Faculty were selected to join the teaching cohorts and student teaching assistants were trained by Scanlon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Marlene Fine, who filled in for Scanlon in fall 1980, recalls the excitement around the program, even in the face of faculty resistance: \u201cWe taught students to critique their work in peer groups, which saved faculty time, and used students\u2019 [time] well. I found those two things exciting about what was going on. And I do think it was groundbreaking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Leone Scanlon was born in Massachusetts and attended American International College in Springfield. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy life involved a lot of work,\u201d she remembers. \u201cI got no support apart from scholarships to attend any of the colleges I went to, so I always had to work. That was an important part of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her mother was a seamstress in a textile mill who tried to organize a union. \u201cI was brought up with a lot of talk about unions and community,\u201d Scanlon says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Leone](\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/90\/Leone_Scanlon_standing.jpg\")
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\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nSecuring grant-funding for an interdisciplinary humanities curriculum <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Martin](\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/90\/Marvin-DLugo-lighter.jpg\")
![\"Albert](\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/90\/Al-Anderson-2.jpg\")
Scanlon <\/strong>strives to direct writing initiatives<\/h3>\n\n\n\n